My experiences with Ed Tech for younger learners and those with special needs shared with you

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Put Your Mail in Its Place With Mailbox

We know our world is constantly changing. Years ago, organizing my e-mail was merely a cinch. Twenty years ago, I remember signing on to AOL and hearing the man say, "You've Got Mail." In those days, sending and receiving e-mail was an enjoyable activity. Not anymore. Between work, school, family, friends, other contacts, and paying bills, my e-mail is constantly flooded. I needed a solution to help me organize my inbox and reduce my mail - with the hope that it would actually reach zero. Worse yet, people were sending me to tasks to complete via e-mail. (This was due to none other than my fault, since I was the one who asked them to do so. "If you need me to get something done, then e-mail it to me," I would tell them.) Yet, that was just adding clutter to my inbox. Thanks to some of my colleagues, I was fortunate to learn about the newly released app Mailbox.

Currently available for iPhone + Gmail (with more platforms to come soon), Mailbox is the the fast, fun mobile inbox that puts email in its place - literally. The Mailbox app uses the cloud to sync with one's Gmail account in order to deliver one's e-mail to his or phone as fast as possible. The mail is then delivered securely to one's phone. With Mailbox, one can quickly swipe messages to his or her archive or trash.

In addition, one can glance at an entire conversation with chat-like organization. If the user finds e-mails that he or she does not need until a later date, he can "snooze" the e-mails until that time with a swipe and tap of just one button. The "snoozed" e-mails will return automatically to the user at the desired time. This enables the user to focus on those e-mails that are important to him or her now.

Mailbox is an entirely new experience to using one's inbox. Personally, I often dread cleaning out my Gmail inbox. Using the Mailbox app no longer makes cleaning out my e-mail a chore; instead it's a breeze. I can now pay attention to those e-mails that are currently in my inbox. And once I focus on those e-mails, I am a left with a clean empty inbox. Now that's a great feeling.